Numerous such situations occur in everyday life, where the current location of a mobile party requiring monitoring may cause concern for the monitoring party. Many examples of such parties to be monitored can be found as regards both living and lifeless beings. Parents may feel concern for their children, the staff at old people's homes or at day nurseries for their wards, the master of the house for his pets and guards for their prisoners. Furthermore, examples of lifeless monitored objects include all kinds of transport vehicles, such as, for example, motorcars and boats.
Solutions of different kinds have been proposed for the monitoring party appointed beforehand in order to monitor the current location of such objects and in order to inform about any drifting out of such occupancy areas that may have been established for them. At the present time, the location of a mobile object can be defined with an accuracy of even a few metres by using the almost global GPS system. By using a wireless data communication network the location information corresponding with the location determined by the GPS system or information about any breach against the occupancy area established for the object can be easily relayed to the party appointed to monitor the object.
Numerous solutions have been proposed in printed patent specifications for monitoring both living and lifeless targets to make sure that they stay within the permitted occupancy area or to find out if they are heading into a prohibited occupancy area and to determine their location at each time. In the solution proposed in the printed US patent specification 2001/0052849 A1 (Jones, J R.) the monitored party carries with him a device equipped with the said GPS modules and modules allowing wireless communication. The device further includes a memory storing location information defining the borders of the occupancy area permitted or prohibited for the monitored party. The device processes data it has received from GPS satellites and compares the location information defined from it with the location information defining the occupancy area. For example, when the user moves over into a prohibited area, a notification is given to a special server, which relays it further to the terminal equipment of the appointed monitoring party. However, the solution in question is strongly based on a server-centred implementation. The monitoring party must perform on a server adjustment of the location information arranged in the devices and defining the occupancy area, from which server the information is then transferred to the memory of the device. In addition, the notification about crossing of the occupancy area border is given first to the server, through which the information is relayed to the appointed monitoring party.
Printed specification WO 01/73446 A1 presents another strongly server-centred solution. Here the monitoring party sends an inquiry to the server, which inquires about the location of the monitored party at the moment in question. However, in this implementation it is not possible to set up any location information defining the occupancy area, and thus it is not either possible to carry out automatic monitoring without the monitoring party having to send constant inquiries to the server concerning the location of the monitored object.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,039 B1 also presents a child location system. In this, too, it is possible to set up location information defining the occupancy area, whereby any breach against this will result in the carrying out of predetermined steps. In this implementation, too, the system also includes a WEB server or “call centre”, in which the monitoring party establishes the location information defining the occupancy area. The server is used to process location information received from the device carried by the child, and this information is compared with the stored location information defining the occupancy area.
However, all the solutions presented above are difficult to implement and they are heavy considering the real usability of the device. From the viewpoint of the monitoring party it is often quite unessential to be aware of the location of the monitored object at each time, whereby this is just intended to have a certain kind of calming effect on the monitoring party. In reality, it would be sufficient for the monitoring party in several cases just to know that the object is within the occupancy area established as permitted for it. To implement this service only, special server-based solutions are very cost-intensive.
Furthermore, such a server-centred functionality for programming a device and for monitoring the location of its carrier at each time is not able to provide such a realistic usability that must be required of the service for such an integrated localizing and monitoring device to become a so-called “popular” means giving access to all without effort. Determination of the occupancy area, for example, through a WEB user interface or a “call centre” requires a heavy server-centred implementation to bring about the service, and hereby it entails unreasonable costs for the final users in order to obtain a constant monitoring service.
Still another significant problem relating to the localization-related applications presented above and also generally known applications is that the location information is in coordinate form. From the point of view of a user unfamiliar with the matter, it is very uncertain whether location information in coordinate form can be understood. In most cases it is in no way possible to outline the location of the monitored party from such location information.